


Racing Toward Ignition

by pleasanthell



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-20 22:35:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9518921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleasanthell/pseuds/pleasanthell
Summary: Maggie unhooked the radio from her belt and changed the frequency to the NCPD channel. “This is Detective Maggie Sawyer. There are extraterrestrial bombs in the Nolan Biotechnologies Warehouse. Block off the nearest highway. Removed everyone from the premises.”Alex heard Maggie on a nearby SWAT officer’s radio and immediately felt nauseated. “Maggie, what are you doing?”





	1. Chapter 1

Alex heard her phone ring in her earpiece. She was in the backseat of a speeding SUV, reading over schematics. Alex slide the green bar on her phone over  without looking at it. “Danvers.”

“I found it,” Maggie said in Alex’s ear over the distinct sounds of gunfire. “The Nolan Biotechnologies warehouse by the docks.” She paused while multiple shots flew over her head as she ducked behind a large wooden crate. “I also made some friends.”

Alex looked up at the driver of the SUV. She hit her shoulder. “The Nolan Biotechnologies warehouse.” She looked down at the schematics in her hand. “Maggie? We’re on the way. Will you be okay until we get there?”

Maggie popped up over the top of her crate and shot back. The last of her attackers fell. “Yeah. I just took care of the last one.” 

“Do you see the bomb?” Alex asked. 

Maggie walked into the large open space of the warehouse. The walls of the warehouse were lined with metal shelves, but in the middle, lines of large, red glowing boxes were carefully place d , each with a timer synced perfectly to all the others. “Bombs. There’s more than one. There’s a lot more than one.”

Alex swallowed. “How big are they?” 

Maggie looked over one of the boxes, “Uh, I guess...” she did the mental calculations based on her estimate of how big they were. “Sixty-four cubic feet. Each.” She walked through the rows of boxes radiating a sweltering heat that forced her to take off her jacket. “And there are sixteen of them.”

“That’s enough to take out the entire city,” Alex exhaled, thoughtfully flattening the map in her lap.

Maggie looked around for some way to turn them off, but there didn’t seem to be a master switch. They were all operating independently. She moved to a small room that served as an office just off the warehouse. She found more schematics on a drafting table. 

“Are you outside?” Alex asked. 

Maggie didn’t answer, she was staring at the schematics and looked at some papers on the table. “Oh no,” Maggie dropped a folder on the table. 

“What?” Alex asked. She looked up at the approaching warehouse. “Did you get outside?”

Maggie ripped the schematics off of the drafting table and quickly walked back into the warehouse. She sunk down next to the nearest bomb and ripped open the side panel. “These aren’t just meant to  just  take out the city. They’re meant to take out Supergirl  too .”

“What do you mean?” Alex asked, getting out of the van.

“They’re dirty bombs,” Maggie leaned over and looked into the bottom of the bomb. She used the schematic to find a small silver box with four wires connected to it. “Supergirl can’t come in here, Danvers.” The tiny box was labeled in strange markings that Maggie immediately recognized. “Oooh, I am so glad that Kara made us play Scrabble with the Kryptonian alphabet.” 

Alex stood outside listening to Maggie talk to herself. “What are you talking about?”

“I can diffuse some of these,” Maggie looked at the rows and rows of bombs. “At least enough to keep the blast radius out of the city, but you have to get everyone out of here. We only have a few minutes.”

“Maggie, open the door so I can help you,” Alex pleaded, “Why are the doors locked?”

“I think I triggered some kind of lockdown protocol,” Maggie used her finger to trace the wires on the schematics. Then she held her breath and yanked a wire out of the detonator box. The red glow of the box flickered and died. 

“Then override it,” Alex stated. 

“No can do, Danvers,” Maggie quickly moved to the next one. “The door is too far away. I can’t reach it.”

“Maggie, I’m serious,” Alex looked toward the warehouse. 

Maggie unhooked the radio from her belt and changed the frequency to the NCPD  channel . “This is Detective Maggie Sawyer. There are extraterrestrial bombs in the Nolan Biotechnologies Warehouse. Block off the nearest highway. Removed  _everyone_ from the premises.”

Alex heard Maggie on a nearby SWAT officer’s radio an d immediately felt nauseated. “Maggie, what are you doing?”

“Sweating my ass off,” Maggie answered. She glanced around at all the bombs, only having gotten three of them diffused. She wiped her forehead as she pulled another detonator out. “It is so hot in here.”

“Supergirl?” Alex asked into her radio as the vehicles behind her started to pulled away. Someone stood next to her like the were trying to get her to come with them, but she glared at him until he went away. She could hear the sirens in the distance stopping on the highway to block the citizens of National City from being blown to bits.

“Five minutes,” Kara answered. She was pushing herself as fast as she could, but she was afraid she wouldn’t make it in time. 

Maggie didn’t want to tell Alex that the timers on the bombs were all set for less then three minutes. She just kept diffusing the bombs, knowing that if she didn’t get enough of them, it would kill Alex who was surely still standing in the parking lot of the warehouse. 

“Alex, I need you to get out of here,” Maggie spoke into her earpiece as she yanked another handful of wires. 

“No,” Alex’s voice shook. “Not without you.” She looked around and found that she was alone in the parking lot with Maggie’s motorcycle. “Your bike is still here. We can jump on it and go.”

“We wouldn’t make it out of the blast radius,” Maggie stated. “There are still too many.”

Alex could only watch with helplessness as  the clock ticked down . She hooked her radio to her belt and ran toward the warehouse. She tried to door again and found that it was still locked. 

“Alex, please leave,” Maggie begged. “Get away from here.”

Alex ran from the front door to the side of the warehouse looking for a way in. “I’m going to get in there.”

“No you’re not,” Maggie sighed. “It’s locked down.” She continued hopping from bomb to bomb, trying to keep them from taking out Alex. She heard shooting outside of the building and knew Alex was trying to shoot her way in. “Alex, it’s not...it won’t work.”

“Maggie!” Alex slammed her fist on the front door. “Override the protocol!”

Maggie paused. She closed her eyes and picked up her radio from the ground. She  covered up her earpiece so Alex couldn’t hear her . “I need two heavies to come in and escort Agent Danvers off property.”

Alex didn’t hear the command, but she knew what was happening when a bomb squad van sped into the parking lot and stopped behind  Maggie’s bike.  In a last ditch effort,  Alex took her gun out and unloaded in into the door until there weren’t any bullets left. 

Kara could hear her sister screaming without the aid of the radio. She knew she was getting close. She pushed herself faster, knowing that she was about to break the sound barrier. It wouldn’t sound nice to the people below, but a few broken windows were better than a dead friend. 

Alex heard a boom in the distance and looked toward the city for more bombs that may have gone off. She didn’t see anything, but a quickly growing speck in the sky coming toward her. She looked away long enough for the large men in heavy armor to grab her. She fought back, punching their pads which had no affect. With enough force, they got Alex into the back of the bomb van and closed the doors. 

Maggie  took a quivering breath in Alex’s ear  that made her stop fighting the bomb squad guys.  Maggie swallowed, her throat and mouth dry.  “I got less than a minute here, Danvers, so I need you to listen.” Maggie had tears in her eyes that joined in with the sweat dripping down her face. “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I want you to know that I have never been happier than I have been with you.”

“Maggie, no,” Alex cried weakly, watching the warehouse get farther and farther away. “Leave now.”

“You are the kindest person I have ever met,” Maggie confessed, watching one of the last three bombs go dark. She looked at the countdown clock on the last two and knew that she didn’t have time to get both of them. “I love you.”

Maggie knelt down at the second to last bomb and yanked open the side panel. She didn’t have high hopes for getting out of the warehouse alive, but she was going to give everything to get back to Alex. 

Her hands had started shaking and it was hard to grab onto the wires.  She checked the time. She may not even had time to defuse the second to last bomb which would put Alex in danger. 

The bomb van stopped and Alex jumped out. She heard another boom and looked up as windows shattered in every warehouse in the vicinity. She looked up and saw a red and blue streak fly straight through the ceiling of the warehouse. 

Alex heard Maggie yelled at Kara to get out, then a beeping noise. Alex put her hand over her mouth as she saw the blue and red streak fly out of the warehouse just before being engulfed by the  explosion that shot out of the warehouse. 

The red cape swirled around Kara as she was thrown to the ground. Alex saw Maggie on the ground in the parking lot.  Maggie slowly pushed to  her hands and knees.  She looked back toward the warehouse that was still standing. Even from the distance, Alex could see the panic on Maggie’s face. She watched Maggie scramble on the ground toward Kara,  her feet slipping . Another explosion sounded and a streak of red obliterated the warehouse, shooting in every direction. It was followed by a quick flash of green.

The flash subsided and as soon as Alex’s eyes adjusted to the lack of bright light, she saw Maggie and Kara in one lump on the ground. Maggie had jumped on top of Kara, shielding her from what Alex could only assume was red sun radiation, then a kind of kryponite particle blast. 

Alex was running toward them before she even registered that it was safe to do so. She  her feet pounded into the ground, pushing herself toward Maggie and Kara as quickly as she could. 

“Maggie?” Kara coughed. She could feel Maggie still on top of her. She had grabbed Maggie and flown out of the warehouse as fast as she could, but the explosion made her drop her friend. She gently rolled over, rolling Maggie onto her back. 

“Maggie!” Alex yelled when she saw that her sister was okay. Her boots skidded in the loose bits of gravel on the road when she tried to stop. She pushed up onto her knees next to Maggie and looked at her face. Alex felt for a pulse and sighed when she found one. 

Maggie fist raised slowly into the air, a purple wire sticking out of both sides.  A strangled laugh escaped her throat. She sang with a raspy voice, “I got it.”

“Oh my god,” Alex rested her hands on Maggie’s head and lowered her forehead to Maggie’s. “You idiot.”

Kara stood up and brushed herself off,  leaning over Alex to check on Maggie.

Maggie took the radio off of Alex’s belt without getting off of the ground. “We’re all clear.”

A round of cheers could be heard from down the street where the rest of the officers and agents were gathered. 

Kara looked at Alex. “Hospital or DEO?”

“DEO,” Alex swallowed, looking at Maggie’s face. Blood was starting to trickle down her cheek from a large scrape on her forehead. Alex looked at Maggie and waited for Maggie’s wandering gaze to stop on her. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry,” Maggie grinned and push up on her elbows. She cringed when she tried to and laid back down. “Ooh, bad idea.”

“You just fell out of the sky and absorbed a large amount of red sun radiation and kryptonite,” Alex ran her fingers over Maggie’s face. “You may need to just lie there until we get you back to the DEO.”

“Only if there’s bottle services at the DEO,” Maggie squinted up at Alex. “I think I deserve a beer.”

“I will buy you all the beer you want,” Kara put her hand on Alex’s back, looking down at Maggie. “You saved my life.”

Maggie grinned. “Always happy to help a Danvers.”

Kara stepped around her sister and took a knee. She reached down toward Maggie to pick her up, but immediately retracted her hands after touching her. She looked at Alex. “She burns.”

Alex frowned. She touched Maggie’s face and didn’t feel anything. Alex leaned close to Maggie’s face and looked at her eyes. “Maggie, look at me.”

Maggie looked right at Alex. She was used to being that close to Alex, but not used to the worried look on her face. “What’s going on?”

“I think you absorbed a lot of whatever came out of that bomb,” Alex looked up at the people around her, all setting up a perimeter around the crater where the warehouse was. “Hazmat suits,” Alex called to the nearest DEO agent. “And I need samples from whatever was in that bomb.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

Supergirl flew back to the DEO, watching over the medic van that DEO had sent out for Maggie. Alex spent the entire ride back getting Maggie’s baseline vital signs and asking her about her symptoms, then when they arrived, Maggie was whisked away to quarantine in spite of Alex’s protests. 

Alex was made to change and go through a decontamination before she was able to get back to her lab. 

Kara was waiting in the lab with a leather pouch in her hand. “I went back to the scene and got the samples so it would get here faster.”

Alex looked through the window of her lab at the exam room where another doctor was feeling Maggie’s ribs for fractures. An irrational wave of jealousy flooded Alex, followed by the realization that someone else was doing her job. She put down the samples and walked out of her lab toward the portable quarantine that had been set up around Maggie. 

Alex had to stop herself from just barging in.  Instead, she put on a mask and some latex gloves. When Maggie saw her walk in, she smiled. “Oh I didn’t know it was going to be that kind of party.”

Alex smiled from behind her mask. She excused the other doctor with her eyes and walked over to Maggie. “It’s protocol. Sorry.”

Maggie shrugged and shook her head. “I definitely wouldn’t want you to get whatever is spooking everyone around here.” She looked up at Alex, her damp hair falling way from her face. “As you can see, I’ve already been hosed down.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex apologized again. She tapped the tablet built into the wall of the quarantine with the back of her hand, waking it up. She started the air filter that created a soft whirring sound overhead. “Okay,” she turned back to Maggie. “It looked like it hurt when the other doctor felt your rips.”

“Yeah, there are a few broken ones in here,” Maggie moved her arm slowly to point to her side.

“Do you mind if I check?” Alex asked. “I don’t have to if it hurts too bad.”

“I’m tougher than you think,” Maggie raised her arms up, waiting for Alex to examine her ribs. Sure enough Maggie at three broken ribs. 

Alex moved her eyes to a less immediate concern of hers. Someone had already bandaged the gash above Maggie’s eye.  She eyes the bandage and decided it was up to par. 

“Do you mind if I examine the rest of your..” Alex cleared her throat. “Rest of your body? I have to see if there are any areas of concern.”

Maggie grinned, seeing how bashful Alex was being. She gestured for Alex to come closer and Alex leaned down, giving Maggie her ear. Maggie whispered, “You know you’ve seen me naked right?”

Alex hung her head and chuckled. “Yeah. Yeah.” Alex looked at Maggie’s amused face. “I just don’t want you to be uncomfortable. We’re in a glass box and there are people everywhere.”

Maggie nodded. “I get it. Thanks for asking. You can do whatever you need to do.”

Alex started with Maggie’s hands, looking over both of them. They were both scraped up pretty badly, but other than that there was nothing out of the ordinary. 

“So what are we looking for?” Maggie asked after watching Alex examine every inch of her arms, then the visible parts of her legs. 

“Just abnormalities,” Alex answered. She checked Maggie’s face to make sure she was still okay with what was happening. “You okay? Hot? Cold?”

“I’m fine,” Maggie smiled. She sort of liked only being able to see Alex’s eyes. They were always so sincere. She looked down at the paper shirt she had been given. “So I guess this is the part where I get naked, huh?”

“Are you okay doing this?” Alex asked Maggie. “With me?”

“I kind of prefer it if was you,” Maggie confessed. “Plus who else is going to know what’s abnormal, if you’re the only one here that knows what normal is.”

Alex smiled behind her mask. “Okay, hold on.” She used her elbow to turn on the tablet in the wall and pressed a button to turn the glass all around them opaque. 

“That is kind of awesome,” Maggie looked all around them at the frosted glass. It felt like she and Alex had been transported somewhere nice and secluded. But she remembered that she was being examined by Doctor Alex and not Girlfriend Alex.

Maggie took off the paper clothes she had been given and stood in front of Alex in the stark light. 

“Oh,” Alex leaned closer to Maggie. “I think I found something.” She saw a small purplish mark near Maggie’s clavicle. 

Maggie tried her best not to laugh. She smiled, “Uh, you did that.”

“Oh,” Alex straightened up. Then she looked at Maggie’s face wide-eyed. “Oh!”

Maggie burst out laughing. She had to lean on the table to keep herself upright. 

Alex was laughing and blushing at the same time. She restarted her examination, keeping in mind that some things that may seem ‘abnormal’ were just things that she had done herself. 

“You can put your clothes back on,” Alex instructed after she was done. She waited for Maggie to be dressed before turning the glass transparent again. She made some notes on the tablet and saw that Supergirl was looking at a bright green substance in a test tube. She frowned and swiped on the tablet until the was a microphone button. “Hey Supergirl.”

She saw that she had startled Supergirl into almost dropping the test tube. Supergirl looked at Alex through the glass of the lab and the quarantine box. Alex pressed the button again. “Maybe let’s not handle the kryptonite, okay?”

Supergirl huffed and walked to the speaker in the office. She pressed the button. “I don’t think it’s kryptonite. It doesn’t feel like it. I’m just going to put it in the analyzer.”

Alex nodded and watched Supergirl move toward the massive machine in her lab. Alex turned back to Maggie. “Um, do you need anything? Are you hungry?”

“I never did get that beer,” Maggie playfully tossed at Alex.

Alex smiled. “As soon as you’re out of here, I promise. You can use the tablet to call me if you need anything. I’m going to go to the lab and run some tests.” She peeled off her gloves as she walked out of the quarantine and tossed them and her mask into a biohazard bin.

She stepped back into her lab and moved to stand next to Supergirl. Kara could tell that her sister was still shaken. She had almost lost both Kara and Maggie in one fell swoop. If Maggie hadn’t gotten that last wire, there was no telling what would have happened. The second blast would have probably killed Maggie and then there would have been no one to shield Kara from the two waves after the concussive blast. 

Alex was moving particularly slow in preparing the samples for analysis, but once they were in the machine, Kara stepped closer to Alex who immediately put her head on Kara’s shoulder.  Alex hugged her sister from the side. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Kara smiled and rested her head on her sister’s. 

“Thank you for saving Maggie,” Alex put her hand on Kara’s shoulder.

“She saved me too,” Kara glanced toward the quarantine where Maggie already looked really bored. 

Alex followed Kara’s eyes and saw Maggie kicking her legs and watching them swing from the exam table. “I’m going to have to hurry or she’ll break out of there herself.”

Kara smiled. “I’ll go talk to her.” 

“Through the glass,” Alex added.

Kara nodded and kissed her sister’s cheek, “Through the glass.”  She walked out of the lab and smiled through the quarantine at Maggie. She spoke into the speaker wired into the wall next to the table. “How are you feeling?”

Maggie shrugged. “Bored.” She pointed at Supergirl, “Thanks for saving my life by the way.”

“Right back at you,” Kara folded her hands in front of herself. “I’m sorry that you have to be in there, though.”

“It’s not that bad,” Maggie tried her best to look on the bright side and come up with something funny to add, but she couldn’t think of any upside to being trapped in a glass box. Instead, she turned the conversation to the thing she and Kara had most in common. “How’s Alex?”

“She’s...” Kara looked back at the lab where Alex was staring intently at a monitor while she shuffled papers around. “She’s going to freak out soon.” Kara took a deep breath and looked back toward Maggie. “It’s kind of starting right now. You can tell because of that twitch,” Kara pointed to her own cheek then dropped her hand. “It was a lot today and it could have been a lot worse.”

“Yeah,” Maggie nodded. “Especially for her.”

Kara nodded in agreement. 

“When I get out of here, do you want to do something?” Maggie asked. “So that we’re both with Alex? Like, movie night or something?”

A bright smile took over Kara’s face, “That would be perfect.”

In the lab, Alex was working really hard on finding out if there was something wrong with Maggie. It gave her something to focus on other than the fact and nearly lost her two favorite people in a single second. 

One of the techs brought her more samples from the scene and she got them to analysis as well. She sent some to some other labs to double check her work. When she took a small break to check on Maggie, she found that Maggie had moved her bed close to the door so that she could sit on it while she used the tablet build into the wall. Kara was sitting on the ground outside of the quarantine with a tablet in her hands. Both Kara and Maggie laughed at the same time and Kara pointed to Maggie who laughed even harder. 

Alex smiled, watching the two of them play a game on the tablets. She rested her chin in her palm and watched them for a few more second before snapping herself back into work mode. 

It was another hour before Alex was ready to try something and even then it was really just a hunch. Maggie had moved her bed back to where it was, but turned a movie on the tablet in the wall with her head on the opposite end of her bed. She looked up when Alex walked to the door and smile, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Alex opened the door to the quarantine without putting on gloves or turning on the small airlock. She pressed a few buttons on the outside and the quarantine walls started folding themselves into the wall. “Where’s Supergirl go?”

“You know,” Maggie sighed happily. She felt freer after the walls were gone. “Heroes gotta save the day.”

Alex nodded. She walked toward Maggie’s bed, but passed Maggie and started punching around a control panel. A yellow light started coming from Maggie’s bed. “I need you to lie on this for a while. You still have some residual kryptonite, but this should take care of it.”

Maggie tossed her pillow to the other end of the bed and laid down flat on her back. She looked up at Alex. “Thanks for doing all this.”

Alex grabbed a stool and pulled it over to Maggie’s bed. She leaned on the warm bed and took Maggie’s hand. She used her other hand to rest on Maggie’s bicep, running her thumb over Maggie’s skin. She kissed the back of Maggie’s hand. “I’d do so much more to keep you alive.”

“And you have,” Maggie smiled at Alex. She could see that Alex was worried and wasn’t sure it this was the freak out that Kara had told her about. But she wanted to tell Alex something else. She had been watching a movie, but she was also thinking about the events of the day and how close she came to actually dying. “So, I totally didn’t want the first time I told you that I loved you to be because I had my arm inside of a bomb.” Maggie watched Alex’s shimmering eyes. “But I do. I love you if there are bombs all around me or it’s just you and me right here.”

Alex closed her eyes and pressed the back of Maggie’s hand to her face. “I love you too. So much.”

Maggie turned her hand so that she could caress Alex’s face. She sat up and took Alex’s face in her hands. “I have never met anyone who made me want to fight so hard to come back.”

Alex placed her hands on Maggie’s legs and looked up at Maggie. “I’m so glad you came back.”

Maggie kissed Alex so grateful that she got to kiss Alex again. 

After a brief kiss, Maggie laid back down on the yellow glowing bed. “Isn’t this how Supergirl recharges?”

Alex nodded. “But there haven’t been extensive studies on human interaction with kryptonite. The yellow sun negates the affects of kryptonite in Kryptonians and in the lab so I figured it couldn’t hurt to try it with you.”

“Good because tonight me and Kara are going to kidnap you and make you watch movies with us,” Maggie covered up a yawn. “I wouldn’t want to make her sick or anything.”

Alex put her head on Maggie’s stomach. “You sure you can stay up that late?”

Maggie brushed Alex’s hair away from her face. She loved the way Alex closed her eyes when she ran her fingers through her hair. She looked so content. “I think I can manage.”

An hour and a half later, the movie was playing on the TV in Kara’s apartment, but no one was watching it. Alex was in the middle of the couch, her arm around Maggie whose head was on her shoulder, her feet tucked under her. Kara had her head in Alex’s lap, her legs draped over the arm of the couch. They had all fallen asleep as the movie droned on to an absent audience. 


End file.
